Alcoholics Anonymous, Atheism, and Authority: The Role of Divinity in Recovery
by Coco de Marneffe
Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) is a unique tradition that exists in contradiction to the hierarchical structure of an organization, particularly a religious one. While AA is not a religious organization, its foundation rests on the personal spiritual experience of the founder and the fellows. NYC was a meaningful place for the founder and remains a grounding point for the worldwide fellowship. In fact, the AA General Service Office Archives (GSOA) is in New York City (Taves 5). When I first approached this project, I had the following questions: How can a tradition that incorporates God welcome atheists and agnostics? How can an organization sustain itself with no visible hierarchy? How does this fellowship engage with NYC? In this paper, I explore the founding of AA, the fellowship of AA, and the language of the book of AA. Through my research, I have discovered that because the founder of AA, Bill Wilson, was able to decenter his identities and experiences, the organization is able to exist without a hierarchical structure and is accessible to people of all identities and backgrounds.
The founding, the fellowship, and the language of Alcoholics Anonymous all center mutuality and universality of experience. One alcoholic, Bill Wilson, had an ecstatic experience of a blinding white light while hospitalized for alcoholism in 1943, which he associated with the feeling of a presence (Taves 4). According to Taves, “this gave rise to a vision of a ‘chain reaction of alcoholics, one carrying this message and these principles to the next.’ The vision, once he rightly understood it, led to the anonymously authored ‘Big Book’ and the Twelve Steps and Twelve traditions of alcoholics anonymous” (4). As one alcoholic passed the message on to the next and AA meetings formed, the fellowship was established. The foundation of the fellowship is the program, which is a spiritual way of life that is compatible with all forms of organized religion or no religion at all (Taves 86). Though Wilson’s unusual experience led to the emergence of a new spiritual path, his spiritual encounter is no more important than that of any other alcoholic.
On the surface, AA appears to have foundational similarities with organized religions, specifically abrahamic ones. In abrahamic religions, individuals receive a revelation from a divine authority and produce a sacred text as a result (Taves 4). In AA, on the other hand, a key figure’s unusual experiences led to the emergence of a new spiritual path and to the production of scripture-like texts that are not directly attributed to the author (Taves 4). AA is different from an organized religion because the founder did not receive a revelation, there is no central divine authority, and the text is not sacred. Wilson was clear that he did not have a revelation; instead, he had a conversion experience. In fact, the word “revelation” is not in the Big Book (Taves 5). 5
According to Wilson, there is no central divine authority because every alcoholic has their own conception of God, and the text is not sacred because the authority of the text does not stem from the author or the referenced divinity. Instead, the authority of the text comes from the fact that it is practically effective in helping alcoholics become and stay sober. While Wilson’s personal religious experience served as the basis for AA, mutual need forged the first link in the chain of alcoholics (Taves 93). The establishment of mutual need between Wilson (Bill W.) and Robert Smith (Dr. Bob), who were friends and fellow alcoholics, is considered the founding moment of AA (Taves 89). Wilson learned through trial and error that the best path to recovery for himself and others was to encourage fellow alcoholics to cultivate their own spirituality or religious experience, rather than “preaching” about his personal encounter with divinity. Therefore, the center of the AA tradition is not Wilson’s personal experiences, but rather mutuality and identification between alcoholics.
Wilson made a dramatic change in the way he spread the message of AA when he decided to stop preaching and presenting his own experience as superior to the experiences of other alcoholics. He lamented, “up to this time I’d been lecturing, I’d been preaching, I’d been teaching. Now I began to think: ‘for my salvation, I need another alcoholic to work on’” (Taves 95). He recognized that a bond of mutuality and identification is what leads to salvation. In addition to this recognition, Wilson used himself as a negative example when speaking publicly about alcoholism. Rather than putting his listeners down, he put himself down and reflected on his mistakes in order to suggest ways to mutually recover. As Taves argues on page 95, “That sense of identification, of mutuality, provides the foundation that allows the alcoholic to embrace a new approach. Simply ‘preaching’ or ‘teaching’ a new approach is doomed to failure.” Here, Wilson’s experience was very much centered but not put on a pedestal.
Wilson managed to decenter his experience from the founding and practicing of the tradition by being “Mr. AA,” the symbolic head and unacknowledged leader of a democratic and leaderless fellowship (Taves 123). In modern AA meetings, Wilson’s presence is clear but he is never referenced by name or title. For example, reading the Big Book out loud in meetings with other alcoholics creates the experience of a collective voice because the text reveals little about the speaker (Taves 118). Instead, the author speaks through the voices of the whole with first-person plural “we alcoholics” as opposed to speaking as the voice of the whole with didactic second-person “you must” language (Taves 117). Although the initial draft contained “you must” rhetoric, the book was ultimately published with “we ought” language. (Taves 113). Furthermore, the book is anonymously authored and reflects the principles of the fellowship and while everyone is aware that Wilson wrote it, they know that the text does not reflect his personal view (Taves 118).
The legacy of Wilson in modern meetings is not his personhood or spiritual experience, but rather his idea of mutuality and identification among alcoholics. When attending meetings, it is clear how decentered Wilson is from the narrative. Wilson was, and continues to be, an extremely well-known figure, but not one of authority. Though he is the founder, he is also just another alcoholic whose sobriety and religious experience are equally as valid as that of every other alcoholic. AA meetings start with reading the AA preamble, which does not mention Wilson at all and states the purpose of AA: “to stay sober and help other alcoholics achieve sobriety,” as well as their self-supporting nature and lack of alliances. The meetings proceed with the chairperson calling on the first speaker to share their qualification. Importantly, neither during the qualification of the first speaker nor during the shares of the subsequent speakers does anyone reference Wilson, considering they are exclusively speaking from their own experience. The meetings end with the serenity prayer, which reads, “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” Although Wilson is never mentioned, his influence is implicit, considering the preamble, the structure of the meeting, the structures of the shares, and the program as a whole would not exist without him. Overall, AA meetings are not about the person Bill Wilson but the individuals who showed up that day to work towards recovery.
Wilson established personal anonymity and rejected the identity of an authoritative founder, which resulted in AA being accessible to people of all identities and backgrounds. Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of AA in terms of the virtues of humility and self-sacrifice (Taves 111). “Just as sacrifice meant survival for the individual, so did sacrifice mean unity and survival for the group and for A.A.s entire fellowship” (Taves 123). William James, the author of The Varieties of Religious Experience and a direct influence on Wilson, wrote that surrender and sacrifice are necessary to the human experience and often facilitated in a religious context (43). The anonymity of alcoholics allows AA to stay true to tradition 12, which reminds alcoholics to place principles before personalities (Taves 112). The value of anonymity affirms that personal ambition has no place in AA. Well-known individuals should not publicly affiliate themselves with AA to prevent AA from being associated with those individuals. Ambition must be replaced with humility so that the individual and the fellowship can survive. In liu of these values, Wilson’s personal piety had to be removed from the spotlight for the greater mission of the fellowship (Taves 105). Wilson said, “Theoretically, I have the same right to form other associations, as any other A.A. does. But in quite a practical sense I am hogtied by the A.A. Tradition of which I am a symbol” (Taves 126). Wilson was personally religious but did not want people to think that AA was a religious organization because of that. As a result, Wilson found himself “suppressing his personal enthusiasm for Catholicism in order to avoid the appearance of aligning AA with the church and at the same time making it clear to concerned Catholic leaders that AA was not a heretical new religious movement” (Taves 126).
While encouraging public-facing anonymity, Wilson supported individuality within the fellowship, specifically when it came to personal conceptions of God. Wilson initially thought the solution to alcoholism was for every other alcoholic to have the same fixed conversion experience that he did. However, he began to question the validity of his own spiritual experience when he was unable to inspire it in other alcoholics (Taves 93). Taves writes that religious experiences should not be defined as a fixed and stable set of experiences, but rather as how people decide on the meaning and significance of their experience (Taves 1). Because each religious experience is personal to an individual’s conception of God, there can be as many religious experiences as there are alcoholics, and these experiences can be sudden or slow (Wilson 57).
AA has been so successful at de-centering Christianity that there are now over 1,000 Zoom AAAA (Atheist and Agnostic Alcoholics Anonymous) meetings accessible at all hours. Although these alcoholics do not believe in God, they read from Alcoholics Anonymous, in which “God” is referenced 64 times, “spiritual” is referenced 60 times, “power” is referenced 16 times, and “spirituality” is referenced twice (Taves 115). The combination of atheistic and agnostic AA fellowships with this religious language seems contradictory. This tension was present historically, as the divine language of the 12 steps was highly contested. For example, Step 2 currently reads, “[we] came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity,” but it had originally said “God” instead of “a power greater than ourselves” (Taves 105). In addition, Step 3 says, “[we] made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him,” which was challenged because it is the first time that “God” appears in the 12 steps. Furthermore, Step 12 reads, “having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs” (12). However, Step 12 was changed from “having had a spiritual experiences” to “having had a spiritual awakening,” considering an awakening is seen as less eventful and committal than an experience (Taves 105). The intention of these changes were to decenter the idea of “God” to make the fellowship of AA more inclusive of non-religious alcoholics. Editors of the earlier drafts argued that “Him” was more comfortable than “God.” The language was changed in the 12th step because a spiritual experience implies a sudden revelation while a spiritual awakening implies an increased awareness and appreciation. Overall, the language was changed in order to decenter “God” and sudden revelatory experiences as much as possible so as to be accessible for all.
Works Cited
James, William. The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature. The Gifford Lectures on Natural Religion Delivered at Edinburgh in 1901-1902. Modern Library, 2002.
Taves, Ann. Revelatory Events: Three Case Studies of the Emergence of New Spiritual Paths. Princeton University Press, 2017.
Header photo: Alcoholics Anonymous
I’d like to thank the individuals at the open meetings I attended for allowing me to attend and share their stories.
